this recipe is well-meaning and a bit earnest — you probably wouldn’t want to be trapped with it in a corner at a cocktail party, but it would be great to come home to after tramping around a frosty field all afternoon. i started with bill granger’s dhal but got bored halfway through and added a bunch of things.

i don’t know if anyone else does this, but i found myself trying to chop the vegetables into small, equally square cubes in an homage to campbell’s vegetable soup.